Professor Joshua Clover: Who is the real 'health and safety risk' at UC Davis?

[marmar]

Who is the real 'health and safety risk' at UC Davis?
Images of student protesters being pepper-sprayed at UC Davis, where I work, are shocking. It's time to get the cops off campus

Joshua Clover
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 November 2011


A spectre is haunting the United States – the spectre of tents. Apparently, they are the greatest threat to order, to education, and perhaps to capitalism, in a generation or more.

The Occupy movement encampments have caused extraordinary repression.Two weeks ago, Occupy Cal returned the movement to the UC Berkeley campus – revitalising the wave of occupations, strikes and walkouts against privatisation and austerity that had spread rapidly throughout the University of California system in 2009-2010. In two separate showdowns with police, non-violent campers joined arms and stood their ground on a grubby knoll at the margin of Sproul Plaza, iconic home to campus militancy in the United States.

The beatings that followed were immediate, unconscionable – and recorded. Some campers were thrown to the ground, dragged by their hair, hospitalised. The hurry and panic of the police insisted on a single, hysterical directive: not one tent should be raised. In response, the students called for a system-wide strike on 15 November.

Strike day at the University of California's Davis campus (where I work) ended with a 20-hour occupation of the administrative bunker. Students were allowed to remain, a rare event in the United States – but Linda Katehi, the University's chancellor, has generally been thought among the administrative classes to have a light, deft touch in these situations. The protest was largely defused, and most students left of their own accord. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/21/uc-davis-health-and-safety